No worries on that one. I've removed half of the seats this morning. I gotta leave for work a bit early, so I'll finish that project tomorrow. This is one of those times where I LOVE air tools.

DP looks like you made a fine buy in that coach. Myself, I've been thinking about getting a Dodge Sprinter touring conversion in a couple of years.

Now to properly round out your stable, you need to trade that Prius in for a VW TDI diesel.

Hope to see that "diamond in the rough" someday as a fine jewel tooling down the road.

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'10 Chrysler T&C Stow-N-Go White. Grandpa's ride.

'13 Chrysler 200 Touring Candy Red. Grandma's ride.

Age and cunning will always over come youth and vigor.

I will NEVER get rid of my Prius!!! Not untill I've driven it 300,000 miles that is. My Toyota is in a class all by itself, and I can never see myself getting back into a "regular" passenger car. I don't know how well the A5 Jetta would fit, but the A4 was just a tad too small in the wrong places, and that was why it lost in the cross shopping with the Prius. Unfortunately though, the new TDI gets worse fuel economy than the old one. I am beating the new TDI engine's EPA specs by an easy 10 mpg.

Yeah, I hope so too. The bus however, is going to take the majority of my spare time in the immediate future.

Hello... I am the new (about 9 months now) owner of this bus... and Brian told the absolute truth. I have the conversion process well underway now.

This bus actually has a top speed of 57 mph; the rear axle will be changed out from a 6.17 ratio to a 4.33 ratio, which will give 75 mph top speed. Brian was wrong about the tach reading, though... the engine was running at it's top rated RPM -- 3000 -- but the tach (which is electronic, and feeds off of the alternator) was out of adjustment. Once adjusted, it shows the proper idle of 780 RPM with a top of 3000 RPM in gear.

The coach originally came with a #20 button in the fuel governor, which was rated at 225 hp. However, some bright boy at Texas A & M changed it to a #27 -- which explained why the bus was so wimpy. I changed it out to a #17 which gives it about 245 hp. The bus now runs like a raped ape!

If any of you are interested, I will be happy to continue to update you on the progress of this bus. Brian finally realized what a daunting task it would be to convert this bus, and bought a "ready made" motor home ; however, I am a mechanic for a bus conversion company here in Mineral Wells, Texas -- I have all of the resources and a shop in which to work .

John E. Smith
Shop Mechanic
Tejas Coach Works
Mineral Wells, TX
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/john_e_smith

Hi John and welcome to the forum!
Glad to hear that you are having good luck with that bus.

When Brian was having his fire sale, I briefly considered purchasing it but, wisely limited my purchase to the old 300D he had. That 300D was was the second parts car that I'd bought from him and is currently sitting in the lean-to side of my barn where I'm slowly but surely stealing all it's parts. The other car from Brian, a 240D, donated it's doors to JimmyL and several other body parts to Fuzzball, both members of this forum. And, It may donate a cylinder head to a car I'm working on now...

Here's links to the two times I retrieved cars from Paradise:
Car 1
Car 2

What ever happened to Brian? Did he move back to CO?

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Thanks for the welcome! Yes, it turned out to be a pretty good vehicle... just needed some TLC!

I believe so... I called him a couple of months ago to ask a couple of more questions, and that was where he was. He said something about a family reunion.

John

John,
That's pretty interesting info about the governor. It is amazing to realize what potential diesel engines have when properly set-up. You might also be interested in seeing what some Finnish guys are doing to "turn up the fire" on Mercedes 603, 606 and 617 diesels.

Insane 617

There's a little HP experimentation going on at this forum but, another MB-related forum has some even more advanced tinkering going on. If interested, E-mail me and I'll provide you a link to that one.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.